Minutes:

CR scoped out the agenda of the seminar and explained that the first session will look at practical AV solutions for the here and now and the second session will look towards the future and where the industry might want to be in the next 12-18 months.

APN is formally recognised by ATVOD as a subset of the Industry Forum which allows APN to maintain effective and open dialogue with the regulator going forward.

CR explained that the role of the Adult Provider Network is to:

To represent the commercial interests of regulated adult providers

To raise industry standards

To articulate a clear industry policy position on child protection

To offer support and guidance

To act as a forum for the exchange of technical expertise through seminars such as: Age Verification In practice – Workable Solutions for the Adult Industry

CR explained the need to look at ATVOD’s Rule 11 which relates to Harmful Material and specifically to the Protection of Under-18s. It states if an on-demand programme service contains material which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of eighteen, the material must be made available in a manner which secures that such persons will not normally see or hear it.

ATVOD’s interpretation of this requirement is that hard-core porn falls into the category of material which might seriously impair children and that it should be offered behind Content Access Control which verifies that the user is aged 18 or over at the point of registration using ‘technical tools’ for age verification

The flaw in the scope of Rule 11 from a child protection standpoint is that it only applies to UK-based services, so those operating or purporting to operate offshore, continue to offer hard-core porn with no access control

There is talk of restricting the flow of money from UK banks to non-compliant foreign sites. There’s also a licensing system being mooted which like the Gambling Bill currently passing through the Commons would shift the focus of legislation away from point of establishment or editorial control in the case of on demand services to point of consumption

APN supports any such initiative which would bring regulatory parity and level the playing field for UK companies
CR outlined the key objective of the seminar which is

To look at such technical tools with a view ultimately to growing and refining the list of accepted means of validating age:

To offer takeaway solutions for an industry facing an immediate problem of having to age verify users. This presents a number of challenges for this afternoon’s panellists:

RO addressed age verification and the lessons to be learnt from the online gambling industry.

RO raised concerns about Privacy and Liability:

Traditional age verification solutions pose a significant privacy risk due to the practice of capturing and storing large amounts of data about adults

The need for standards with regards to how these solutions will operate and what levels of confidence will be associated with a pseudo-anonymous age verification process

Liability is a major concern not only for organisations that are in a position to share age-related information but also those companies that relied on the information.

RO raised the issue of Compliance Cost: Traditional age verification was viewed in terms of a burdensome compliance cost that would have a negative impact on revenue.

RO highlighted the potential of age verification as a revenue generator.

Age verification feasibility studies conducted in the UK. These small scale studies are helping the UK Government and a number of small business sectors to learn how age verification might work in practice and on a larger scale.

Key focus of the current discussions about age verification is on defining viable and sustainable commercial models to support sustainable large-scale development.

In the UK, leveraging an ‘identity ecosystem’ to deliver more efficient, cost effective ID and age verification processes is recognised as a potential source of revenue for Identity and Attribute Providers e.g. Post Office, Personal Data Stores (PDS), mobile operators.

Streamlining ID and age verification processes may have a positive impact on compliance costs for a number of business sectors.

RO raised the issue of the absence of standards:

There were substantial technical integration challenges and costs associated with the solutions available on the market in 2008.

Not feasible to expect global businesses to adapt their service provision in response to a wide variety of different solutions.

RO explained the issue of Global Standards:

European Parliament is reviewing legislation that would require the national electronic Identity Ecosystems across Europe to mutually recognise one another.

The technical standards on which identity ecosystems around the globe were and are being built upon enables inter-operability between the different systems.

Identity Ecosystems have the potential to be scalable and provide both national and global companies and governments with ID and age verification solutions to meet clear business public service needs.

RO explained some of the Barriers to Innovation:

Representatives from a range of business sectors insisted that age verification would serve as a barrier to innovation of online services and products, if the high costs associated with age verification were expected to be borne by start-up companies.

RO raised the point that streamlining pseudo-age verification processes for the adult industry and developing self-regulatory good practices will serve to off-set overly burdensome legislative requirements and protect revenues.

PM addressed the regulatory aspects of identity and age verification and how organisations already work to meet this need whist improving their customer journey, enhancing their brand reputation and increasing business profitability.
PM gave a brief overview of the GBGroup:

Fraud Management Solutions (FMS) indicate: Their physical location, the ID of the device being used, the likelihood that they will pay, their usual behaviour patterns, examples of previous suspicious activity, whether they have been flagged as a fraudster in the past.

PM detailed the breadth of data in the UK – e.g. postal records, electoral roll, consented marketing data, landline telephone directory, mortality records , fraud signals, national ID cards etc.,.
Customers input their name, address, date of birth and are then taken through to a single, secure, transparent audit trail
PM stated that it is important that Age Verification Solutions:

Prohibitively expensive: The business models – particularly for the free content sites – are very different from e.g. iGaming. The value for the customer is significantly lower for the adult industry. Cost can be anything between 25p and £1.50 to verify someone.

Avoco’s Trust Platform was selected for the UK Government Skills Funding Agency (SFA):

The SFA currently has 16 million unique user learner records.

The platform has gone through 10,000 hours of independent testing.

This trust platform meets the UK Government standards and delivers Government level 1 and 2 assured identities for the SFA.

Trust Level 2 Identity (TL2): TL2 accounts can only be created after Identity Verification, through an on-line or off-line route.

The users’ personal details including date of birth and address are then submitted to a credit reference agency for Verification.

If the details are matched, the user is asked a number of personal questions to validate their identity.

This is being extended to include DVLA and Passport Office data checks.

CGI are partnering with Avoco to deliver our Trust Platform to Government and Commerce. The same core Trust Platform technology that is currently deployed in the SFA, will be used to deliver independently hosted solutions for other sectors or companies. CGI (formerly Logica) are ranked as the 5th largest global IT

Supports Cloud based tokenised identity systems that can be used to federate associated sites/services.

Privacy

The platform incorporates the option to obtain user permissions/consent to utilise data.

The site uses Opaque persistent identifiers to prevent tracking across the web.

User Anonymity

Users can remain anonymous, whilst showing the service that this person is over a certain age (privacy of date of birth being retained by only showing the service if the user is over or under a specified age).

Default setting for restricted content would be the user remains anonymous.

Payments

The platform can be configured to support Data Anonymization of user payment details.

Location awareness

This option allows services/sites to verify a user’s location. This can be used to apply rules in line with regulatory requirements of a jurisdiction.

Questions & Answer Session

RJ raised the point of the difficulty and sensitivities around capturing information and ID in the adult industry

MP quoted that 64% of consumers trust their mobile operators are the ideal trusted entity for capturing ID

The majority of attendees agreed that the customer user experience is generally unpleasant

All attendees agreed that a Federated Gateway which covered all liability costs would be a great way forward for the industry.

RG proposed a one time ID process, where costs are shared and a lower blended price is achieved. It could include an online footprint with much better match rates.

65% of customers don’t have a credit card

SMS and mobile is a good option to secure ID

RO highlighted the importance of the industry coming together and proposed that the industry should form a Working Group and hold and participate in other seminar and industry events.

RO concluded that there is an appetite for good practice and good guidelines within the industry – which would serve as formal recognition of APN as a body